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After A Chaotic, Error-Riddled Primary, 3 Ideas For Reform

Aaron Hubbard gets help from his 14-month-old daughter, Ashlee, dropping off his ballot in Portland, Oregon. CREDIT: AP PHOTO/DON RYAN
Aaron Hubbard gets help from his 14-month-old daughter, Ashlee, dropping off his ballot in Portland, Oregon. CREDIT: AP PHOTO/DON RYAN

The first presidential primary in 50 years without a functioning Voting Rights Act just drew to a close. The nearly year-long slog featured, among other challenges, voters in Arizona waiting five hours to vote, students in North Carolina getting turned away from the polls, Rhode Island shutting down two-thirds of its polling places, New York purging tens of thousands of voters from its rolls, voters unable to get off work in order to attend their caucuses, and homeless veterans in Wisconsin struggling to get voter IDs.

The U.S. has dismally low rates of voters participation overall in comparison to other developed countries, and it tends to be even lower in primaries. Primary election voters also tend to be older, wealthier, and whiter than the country at large.

Americans may feel resigned to the long waits, bureaucratic confusion, and low participation rates that characterize primary elections. But a few key ideas have emerged from the chaos that could radically reform the system — and make it far easier for millions of people to vote.

From the mailbox to the ballot box

Two decades ago, Oregon embarked on what was then a radical experiment: giving each and every resident of the state the option to vote by mail in a presidential primary. The state then became the first to conduct all its elections by mail, followed in 2011 by Washington State and in 2013 by Colorado. Nineteen other states conduct some of their elections by mail.

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After witnessing the widespread voter suppression and confusion that marked this year’s primary, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) is pushing a bill in Congress to take the policy nationwide.

“Voting should not be a test of endurance. It should not be a Kafka-esque experience of defeating bureaucracy,” he told ThinkProgress. “But all over America, from one end of the country to the other, we’re seeing that. We’ve got working parents choosing between going to work and going to vote.”

Wyden, the first U.S. senator ever to be elected by mail, cited the fact that 17 states have added new voting restrictions since the last presidential election, including cuts to early voting hours, strict voter ID laws, and the elimination of voter registration drives. Less than a quarter of eligible voters have participated in this year’s presidential primaries, and even in historic, high-turnout general elections like in 2008, just 56 percent chose to participate.

But in Oregon, where every registered voter receives a ballot in the mail with the postage pre-paid, more than 85 percent cast a ballot in 2008.

“We have 20 years of hard data that it is more convenient, less expensive, and helps to boost turnout when you vote by mail, especially for the disabled and the elderly,” Wyden said. “If you’re juggling two jobs and going to school, and you’ve got a young family, this will make it easier for you. The idea that you’d have to take off work and stand in a line for hours in order to vote is ridiculous.”

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In California’s June primary, the option to vote by mail fueled high turnout, with more than five million people choosing to mail in a ballot. Those who showed up to the polls on election day, however, faced three hour lines, broken machines, late poll workers, and incomplete voter rolls.

Under Wyden’s draft bill, which has not yet been introduced, all states would have to send ballots to all registered voters at least two weeks before Election Day. Voters would then be able vote in one of three ways: by mailing in their ballot free of charge, by dropping it in a secure drop box, or by going to the polls the traditional way. Fraud would be deterred by a signature verification system that matches ballots with the state’s voter rolls, and signing and returning someone else’s ballot would be a felony.

Wyden says he has not yet hammered out the details of how the law would work in states with strict voter ID laws. Some states have considered making all those who submit absentee ballots by mail include a photocopy of their ID — a burden for many low-income or elderly voters who lack a means of transportation to make that copy.

“We’re going to work with states that have those onerous requirements,” promised Wyden. “But when you’ve put a ballot in a voter’s hand, you’ve already cleared the biggest barrier for them.”

Push caucuses into the dustbin of history

The caucus has been a part of U.S. politics for more than 200 years, but there is a growing movement to abolish it.

Once a way for small communities to come together and hash out their differences before coming to a consensus on a candidate, the process has continued in states with massive populations, drawing a host of criticisms. Turnout tends to be abysmally low. There is no privacy, as participants have to publicly stand and be counted to cast their votes, opening up the possibility of coercion or intimidation. Depending on the state, arcane rules allow ties to be broken by flipping a coin or pulling a card out of a deck. Since the caucus takes place over several hours on a single day, anyone who has to work, or is sick, or is traveling, or has to care for a child, can’t participate.

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Even the chair of the Democratic National Committee recently called for getting rid of primary caucuses, but whether states will agree remains to be seen. In May, a bill to change Colorado’s caucus to a regular primary in 2020 failed to pass. But Nevada’s effort to do the same is moving forward in the legislature. Minnesota’s governor signed a bill in May to begin holding a primary instead of a caucus in 2020, while voters in Wyoming and Washington State are also looking into bucking tradition and holding regular primary elections.

Automatic voter registration

Before any voters can cast ballots, they have to register, and the laws regarding that process vary wildly from state to state. Twelve states and Washington D.C. states allow voters to register and vote on the same day. Thirty-one states and Washington D.C. allow voters to register online. All states are required by law to give voters the option of registering every time they visit a DMV, but several states have faced lawsuits for failing to comply.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed a bill in March that will eliminate community voter registration drives. North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) signed a 2013 law that, among other provisions, ended a program to pre-register 17-year-olds who will turn 18 by Election Day. Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) imposed “onerous” restrictions on third-party registration drives, and threatened groups like the League of Women Voters with fines for not complying.

Both red and blue states have also been sued for improperly purging tens of thousands of people from their voter rolls.

Yet a small number of states have begun to move in the opposite direction, making voter registration not just easy, but automatic. Oregon, followed by California, West Virginia, and, most recently, Vermont, have passed laws to make voter registration at DMVs an opt-out rather than opt-in process.

In Oregon, where the law has already gone into effect, tens of thousands of new voters have been added to the rolls. In California, that number could be in the millions.

Vermont Secretary of State, a strong advocate for the policy, told ThinkProgress he hopes it will add 50,000 new voters to the rolls when it goes into effect next year.

“I believe that voting is a sacred right that we must encourage and protect, and our democracy works best when people can actually participate in it,” he said. “We hear all this talk about voter fraud, but I’m a firm believer that the true voter fraud is when someone is eligible but denied the right to vote.”

President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders have called for automatic voter registration to become the law nationwide. Sanders introduced a bill in the Senate last year to implement it, but it has since languished in committee. Should it pass and become federal law, up to 50 million people could be added to the voter rolls, more than enough to sway an election if those people showed up to cast their ballots.